Youth fire brigades grow: New mini fire brigades inspire in Torgau-Schatz!

The Torgau-Schatz district fire brigade association made pleasant progress in young talent last year. The association currently has 36 youth fire brigades, while in the Torgau-Oschatz region, twelve mini fire brigades are active. In 2024, a new children's fire brigade was founded in Audenhain, which started with six members. There is also the first children's fire brigade to be launched in Langenreichenbach in 2017.

This includes a total of twelve mini fire brigades, which together include 121 members. Although the number of youth fire brigades reached its peak in 2009 at 43, a merger led to larger groups. In the past 15 years, the number of members in the youth fire brigades has risen from 476 to 611. Children can enter the children's fire brigade from the age of five and from the age of eight.

growth and number of members

Andrea Dechert was elected as the new district youth manager in September last year. The number of members in the association has increased by 104 since 2017, so that 79 member fire brigades currently have a total of 3099 members. Of these, 2096 are active service, while 633 are female. The age distribution shows 414 members between 16 and 26 years, 1856 aged 26 to 65 years and 813 people over 65 years. The association registered 23 more active members compared to the previous year.

According to the last statistics, a total of 356,896 children and adolescents were active in the German youth fire brigade in 2023, which was an increase of 7.4 percent compared to the previous year. Of these, 266,824 young people belonged to the 18,311 youth fire brigades, including 80,694 girls. 90,072 children were also active in the 5,944 children's groups, including 33,320 girls. In addition, the youth fire brigades recorded 62,025 new additions, including 51,493 young people and 10,532 children who switched from the children's groups to the youth fire brigades.

A total of 18,681 members of the youth fire brigade transferred to the active service of local fire brigades, including 4,711 girls. Voluntary youth fire brigade and head of the children's groups have regularly carried out group offers. They received support from 78,715 deputies, supervisors and helpers. Further details can be found in the association magazine Lauffeuer and in the yearbook of the German Fire Brigade Association e.V.